This invention relates to a handled thermoplastic bag pack.
In the recent past, thermoplastic handled grocery sacks have begun to compete with kraft paper grocery sacks, which still dominate the market by a large margin. Thermoplastic grocery sacks have many advantages over the conventional kraft paper grocery sack. Included among these advantages are: superior tear strength, being waterproof, having the convenience of handles, permitting faster loading, having more and better secondary use capabilities, having higher density, etc. It is, therefore, expected that in the future, wider use will be made of such bags.
A conventional manner of providing such handled thermoplastic sacks is to arrange them in a lay-flat stack of 50,100 or more and bond them together by way of an integral tab which extends upwardly from the bag mouth opening. This tab, in addition to providing the site at which the plurality of bags are bonded together, also constitutes the tear-off site of each bag from the bonded tabs. These bonded tabs also provide the site from which the pack of bags can be suspended from some suitable support means. For instance, a peg or flat tongue or similar suspension means may extend through an orifice in the bag tabs. U.S. Pat. No. 4,165,832, issued Aug. 28, 1979, the subject matter of which is, in its entirety, incorporated herein by reference, is an example of the type of thermoplastic grocery sack which forms the subject of the instant invention. In addition, application Ser. No. 548,470, filed Nov. 3, 1983 is directed to the subject of an improved thermoplastic bag pack. The subject matter of this application is, in its entirety, incorporated herein by reference.
Part of the essence of the invention of the above referenced patent application revolves around the employment of an orifice in the bag pack suspension tabs. This orifice served two functions, one, to provide the point of support for some suspending means, such as, a peg or tongue, and the other, as the point of tear-off for individual bags. The orifice was so structured so as to leave comparatively small webs of film between it and the closest point near the bag mouth opening. These small webs provide comparatively small resistence to separating an individual bag from the bag pack assembly.
While such a bag pack assembly generally functions as intended during the support and dispensing of bags during a typical check out procedure in a supermarket, in a certain number of cases, when only a few bags remain in the pack, a problem is encountered. It has been found that as the number of bags in the bag pack decrease, the weight of the bag pack naturally also decreases, and, on attempting to remove a bag from the now-lightweight-pack, the entire pack is pulled from the suspension means. This causes a slow down in the system, requiring the bag pack to be re-hung from the suspending means and two hands to be employed to separate the last few bags from the bag pack.
It is an object of the present invention to present a new and novel bag pack assembly which is not subject to the shortcomings of the prior bag pack.
It is another object of the invention to present a bag pack which can be firmly and securely suspended from a suspension means and which will permit individual bag dispensing down to the last bag in the pack.